Assassin’s Creed Shadows Feels Like The Series Trying To Come To Terms With Its Warring Halves

In more than a few ways, Assassin’s Creed Shadows feels like two different eras of the franchise trying to fit into the same experience. Two different playable protagonists let you choose between a more stealth-action approach or a pure action approach, for example, and before you start playing, you must pick whether the story will be driven by dialogue choices or follow the canonical timeline (which omits choices from dialogue). It’s as if Ubisoft Quebec is attempting to squeeze together both of the experiences of the past two Assassin’s Creed games it helmed: Syndicate and Odyssey. It results in what feels like a hybrid beast of an Assassin’s Creed that I largely enjoyed playing for six hours. However, there are parts of the experience in which it seems like Shadows is straining to keep both sides of the equation happy.

The introduction of a canon mode feels like the most clear-cut example of this, as it adds a means by which players can forgo all roleplaying choices and see Shadows’ story play out as Ubisoft Quebec intends–basically how Assassin’s Creed worked prior to Odyssey.

“Yeah, [canon mode] came from the fans,” game director Charles Benoit told me. “We’re the first that brought the choices in the dialogue [in Odyssey]. In Odyssey, we had a mixed reception. The core fan said, ‘We’re in the Animus. History is predefined–why do you have choices?’ But, in another way, we have an RPG and it’s cool to have the roleplay. So [for Shadows], we made it so the fan that wants to have the true story [can], while keeping the cool thing about roleplaying choices.”

I don’t hate this idea–in fact, I think it’s really cool–but including it at all feels indicative of a larger identity problem plaguing Assassin’s Creed: It’s not so clear-cut what these games are supposed to be anymore, and so it’s better to shotgun blast numerous ways to play rather than carefully curate a unified and singular focus. You can see this playing out a bit in the gameplay, where Naoe focuses on playing stealthily but her gameplay doesn’t quite rise to the pedigree of her contemporaries in other stealth-action games. And in the same way, Yasuke is a whirlwind of destruction, but he doesn’t quite deliver a combat experience to match other action heroes. In trying to satisfy two types of Assassin’s Creed fans, I’m worried the full experience of Shadows may fall short no matter what you’re looking for.

However, my six hours with Shadows presented what I’ve come to expect from all Assassin’s Creed games: a well-researched and beautifully realized location brought to life with a memorable soundtrack and superb voice acting. In this regard, Shadows seems to excel, and I posit that “historical playgrounds” is now the defining quality of the series because the gameplay itself is never going to return to a unified vision. After playing through Shadows, I toured Ubisoft Quebec and spoke to several members of the team to learn more about how the game came together and I was regularly blown away by just how pretty this game is and the team’s commitment to creating as accurate a historical fantasy as possible.

“We started slowly by just reading here and there,” Benoit said. “From day one, we had a historian with us, so she brought a lot of cool things to read. We also referenced other [sources] and experts that gave us a lot of papers. We have thousands of pages on the era that we can read. We also just watched movies and immersed [ourselves] in this universe. We went to Japan for two weeks, a big visiting trip. We saw a lot of things that we [used] in our map.”

Benoit said that over a dozen members of the team went to Japan, most of whom are directors on the game. Ubisoft also ensured that members from the art team, including a texture expert, went as well. I only got to explore a snippet of Shadows’ 1579 feudal Japan, but I could not stop staring at what I was able to see, even when I should have probably been paying attention to the approaching guards.

With so much of the art direction and world design acting as one to present a singular vision, I was curious as to why Shadows split its focus in so many other places, like the dual protagonists.

“Gameplay-wise, when we started looking at, ‘What’s the fantasy that we want to have?’ we knew we wanted the ninja fantasy game,” narrative director Jonathan Dumont told me. “So we started crafting early on in conception. And then, the more we went, we were looking, ‘Okay well, let’s put some samurai things in.’ And then, it started piling up two fantasies instead of one.”

He wasn’t the only one to tell me that story, with Benoit also reciting how Shadows largely started as a primarily shinobi fantasy but the appeal of fulfilling the samurai fantasy warranted the need to add another playable character.

“What was really interesting about doing that is that we were creating advantages and disadvantages for two characters,” Dumont added. “The other thing is that a lot of people in the history of Japan have a lot of nuance because you can be a bad guy or a good guy and there’s war everywhere. And so, we really wanted to look at two sides of the coin a lot of times. So Oda Nobunaga is a good example where, I’ll go into war with Naoe’s village, and [at the same time], we know that he made Yasuke into a samurai. So what are the two sides of him? And I think coming into the setting with those two storylines or two viewpoints plus the two archetypes is really cool.”

Notably, that aspect of historical nuance was not shown in the preview I played. During the preview, I played through the prologue of Shadows before jumping ahead to partway through the story and then finishing up with an hour in the game’s base-building feature. The prologue saw me play through both sides of the aforementioned village attack, with Naoe as a defender and Yasuke as an aggressor, as well as an introduction of the game’s group of masked enemy Templar targets. The jump forward saw both Naoe and Yasuke now working together as allies to deduce the identity of one such masked target and kill them, with the option to explore a small portion of what looks to be a very big map and complete optional side activities. This section was the crux of the preview, presenting numerous opportunities to jump back and forth between the stealth-focused Naoe and loud-and-proud Yasuke.

So while I did get to see Nobunaga’s attack on Naoe’s village and play through both sides of it, the demo skipped the aftermath, so I didn’t get to see how the game might follow that up and explore the nuance of the battle. There was a smidge of these themes in a later mission I got to play through, which saw Naoe and Yasuke united in purpose but divided in terms of overall goals: The shinobi desired the protection of the innocent caught in a shadow war while the samurai concerned himself with the larger political ramifications. And based on what I experienced, I had a choice that felt like it could potentially have significant consequences down the line. I’m curious to see how this choice ultimately plays out in the full game, as well as other moments where Naoe and Yasuke can spare certain individuals or pursue alternative outcomes. They present an opportunity to participate in the game’s discussion of the nuanced viewpoints of history (assuming you don’t choose to play in the canon mode), through the lens of two very different characters. Assassin’s Creed did this very well back during the Kenway saga, but limited its scope to the members of the Assassin Brotherhood and Templar Order. The series, as a whole, has largely shied away from exploring its historical figures through two wholly different worldviews. In that regard, Shadows has a chance to tell a type of story that no other game in the series has.

Dumont explained that the two protagonists help satisfy the now two largely different gaming experiences that Assassin’s Creed has become. “Our franchise went through transformations during 15 years,” he said. “Early on, it was more about parkour and then a little bit more about stealth and all of that. And then, from Origins on it’s a little bit more combat-oriented or at least giving you an archetype that encourages it. So we have fans of both. That’s why I say Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the ultimate Assassin’s Creed, because it is an Assassin’s Creed that sort of englobes all of those periods that we’ve had in the franchise.”

I did my best to swap between the two protagonists whenever I had a chance. In the open world, this can be done at any time, even while in the midst of a mission. During one segment of the demo, I tackled the different steps of an investigation with different characters, like using Yasuke to carve through the enemy soldiers keeping a hapless woman under guard before switching to Naoe to handle infiltrating the area where the woman said her no-good husband was likely being held. During a major story mission in an enclosed area, I could no longer switch between the two whenever I wanted, but Shadows divided the level into self-contained parts and at each junction, I had the option of continuing onwards with the character I was currently playing as or switching to the other. I chose to just switch at every opportunity, leaning into the fantasy that Naoe and Yasuke are tackling these major assassination missions together. After the demo, I was told that only a few of Shadows’ missions force you to play as one of the characters. Otherwise, you can choose to tackle the game however you want, even playing the entire thing as just Naoe or Yasuke (outside of the missions where it’s mandatory to play as one or the other, of course).

“Naoe has a bit more time because at the beginning [of the story] we start off with Naoe [and continue] until she meets Yusake,” Benoit said. “But after that point it’s pretty much 50/50 in terms of forcing one or forcing the other. Most of the [missions] are open for both, so it’s pretty much 50/50 and it’s your choice to change this ratio.”

“The cool thing is that [both characters] progress at the same speed,” Dumont added. “So if you gain a level, both [Naoe and Yasuke] gain a level. …You don’t have to manage the character [you’re not playing] and bring [them] up to speed.”

Both Naoe and Yasuke seem to handle as well as their Assassin’s Creed protagonist predecessors. Naoe plays much like Basim or Jacob, Evie, and Lydia Frye, though new mechanics like going prone and new features like dynamic lighting introduce more tools to aid in sneaking around. Meanwhile, Yasuke plays like a (somehow) even less nimble version of Kassandra and Eivor and leans into Shadows’ breakable armor system to make combat marginally more complex and interesting than the series has managed so far. Between the two, I had a far more enjoyable experience playing as Naoe. Again, there are stealth games out there that feel better than Shadows, but it at least takes steps in the right direction when playing as Naoe. The shinobi typically goes down in one or two hits on the normal difficulty, encouraging you to plan your approach and strategically snake through enemy vision cones to reach your target. Playing as Naoe is a very different fantasy than Kassandra, but playing as the shinobi reminded me of the fun I had puzzling together the solution to best systematically dismantle enemy fortresses as the Greek demigod in Odyssey, a joy I never got in Valhalla or Mirage.

Throughout Naoe and Yasuke’s journeys, the two of them can flirt and fall in love (one of the best additions Odyssey ever made to Assassin’s Creed–Kassandra and Kyra fans unite!), and the choices you make in the story can sometimes recruit an ally to their cause. These individuals return to the Hideout–a hub area with a surprisingly robust system (for Assassin’s Creed, not for something like…The Sims) that lets you build and customize a myriad of upgradable buildings, pets, and passive perks to create the ideal homestead. Some of these allies will join you in the open world and in missions to be called upon (akin to the recruits in Brotherhood or Assassin’s Creed III), like a wrestler who can knock over difficult-to-stun enemies, a young shinobi who can silently take out a guard for you, and a shrine maiden who concocts deadly poisons to knock out multiple enemies at once.

“You can build a relationship with characters whether they are romantic or non-romantic,” Dumont said. “We never force a romance on players. And then there [are choices] you can [make] with allies that you can mess up, meaning they don’t get to be recruited because they say, ‘Hell no.’ Some are easier to recruit, but there’s a couple of ones that are a little tricky. And then there are choices during some of the missions where all your answers can have an influence on the mission [and its outcome]. The main story arc of both characters is pretty linear, I would say, or at least canon so people will get, most likely, pretty similar endings. But outside of that, there’s going to be recruitment, romance, [optional] helping quests, and stuff like that where the outcomes are going to be different [for different players]. And then all of those choices that you make or some of them are reflected in the Hideout when you meet back with those characters.”

It really all comes back around to there being a lot of game here, so even after playing Shadows for six hours, it doesn’t feel like I really played any of it at all. From what I experienced, it seems like too much for the game to unite into a singular vision, with Yasuke feeling a bit neglected mechanically. But even when it comes to Naoe, what I’ve played so far doesn’t seem to quite hit that stealth experience I want from the series. And though the story’s themes around tackling the nuance of historical figures sound cool, I didn’t really get a chance to see that–same for the romance, ally recruitment missions, and the consequences of the game’s choices. Shadows sounds like a game I’ll enjoy, but I need to see how all these pieces come together. If the superb world design, art direction, and music are any indication (as well as Ubisoft Quebec’s pedigree, considering Syndicate and Odyssey are the two best Assassin’s Creed games to date), I’m inclined to go into the full experience with hopeful expectations.

We won’t have long to wait and see. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is set to launch for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC on March 20.